Boston Breakers’ Draft Strategy Reflects Confidence in Women’s League

By Howard Megdal

Jan. 12, 2017

LOS ANGELES — Viewers tuning into the online livestream of the National Women’s Soccer League draft Thursday could be forgiven for thinking their feed was caught in a perpetual loop, as it endlessly repeated, “The Boston Breakers are on the clock.”

It only seemed that way. What viewers were watching was a roster-rebuilding strategy with few precedents. A series of off-season trades and roster moves had set up the Breakers with the most picks of any of the league’s teams: five of the first 11 selections, and seven over all.

The result was the spectacle of a rebuilding team — one that has struggled on the field and in its efforts to recruit top American stars — remaking its roster in real time, one fresh new face at a time. But it was also a show of confidence, Breakers officials said, that the five-year-old league was finally established enough for Thursday’s play to pay dividends.

“Previously, it’s really been about the here and now,” said Lee Billiard, the Breakers’ president for soccer operations and development. “And last year, it started to be about the picks today, and what they’ll mean for next year. It wasn’t, until last year, about longevity.”

Ultimately, the Breakers — who had picks Nos. 1, 3, 8 and 9 — added four new players in the first round, most notably the top pick, Rose Lavelle, a 21-year-old box-to-box midfielder out of the University of Wisconsin who immediately became the team’s star attraction.

The Breakers then added Southern California midfielder Morgan Andrews with the third pick, and forwards Ifeoma Onumonu (California) and Margaret Purce (Harvard) at Nos. 8 and 9.

The unusual strategy took shape over the previous few months. Critical was a trade with the Washington Spirit that raised eyebrows around the league, in which Boston acquired picks Nos. 3 and 9, as well as Megan Oyster, in exchange for Kasey Kallman and Kristie Mewis. Next, the Breakers traded the 12th, 16th and 21st picks to Chicago for picks Nos. 8 and 38.

The idea, Billiard said, is to collect a group of players who can play the way Coach Matt Beard wants, and drafting them all at once allows Beard, who previously coached Chelsea Ladies F.C. and Liverpool Ladies F.C. in England, to mold them together. And this draft is not the end of that process.

“League growth is coming,” Billiard said. “There are expansion teams that are going to be coming in. But we’ve gotten ourselves in position to have a strong, competitive team this year and pick up some future picks to guard against an upcoming expansion draft. We’re already thinking that far ahead.”

The infusion of young talent Thursday came at a moment when the N.W.S.L. needed some good news. The Orlando Pride’s Alex Morgan is now Olympique Lyon’s Alex Morgan, at least until midseason, after she agreed to a short-term loan to the French powerhouse. Crystal Dunn, the league’s most valuable player in 2015, recently departed for Chelsea.

Those moves broke the virtual monopoly the N.W.S.L. had on United States national team players, but they were not the only worrisome moves; Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence, young Canadians who had have been coveted by the league, chose to sign with European clubs instead of entering the draft.

Boston’s draft strategy was also a nod to the short window for players who are not on the national team to remain in the league, where low pay for mid-tier and low-end players remains an issue.

Still, league officials stressed Thursday, each year brings incremental progress. The league’s survival is no longer its biggest concern, and attendance grew in 2016, with a leaguewide increase of 10.1 percent.

The N.W.S.L.’s president, Jeff Plush, indicated that he would announce a new television contract within 30 days, and he also said there would soon be an announcement about increased player salaries. Those details are expected to include a bump in minimum and maximum pay for players who are not on the national team.

He had no news to share, however, on the biggest question hanging over the league: the ongoing labor dispute between players on the United States women’s team and U.S. Soccer, which pays their league salaries as part of its subsidizing of the N.W.S.L.

“We’re not part of that negotiation,” Plush said. “We’re going to let that negotiation run its course. We know we’re going to have our camps open, players will be excited to be there, and when that gets resolved, those players will be in camp as well.”

Accordingly, teams are planning for the longer term, taking steps now to guard against potential losses in an expansion draft — if rumored teams in Vancouver and Los Angeles are added for 2018. That might have been why Boston, flush with picks in this year’s draft, promptly flipped its fifth, the 11th selection over all, for a second-rounder next year and the roster space for an as-yet-unnamed international player.

The deal also gave the Breakers a little break, though not for long. They were back on the clock at No. 31, where they added Southern Cal goalkeeper Sammy Jo Prudhomme, and then at 38, Hayley Dowd, the Boston College product heading home.

Correction:Jan. 17, 2017

Because of an editing error, an article on Friday about the National Women’s Soccer League’s draft referred incorrectly to Crystal Dunn at the time she recently departed the league for Chelsea in England. She was a former most valuable player, not the reigning one. (She won the award in 2015.)

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Relying on Draft to Rebuild, Boston Shows Faith in Women’s League. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe